I have seen my fair share of square-wheeled carts and holes being dug just to make room for the dirt from the previous holes. The level of inefficiency in the bidding world is sometimes staggering.
The inefficiencies can be split into two areas:
- Self-inflicted problems and time-wasting within proposal departments
- Management-induced problems and time-wasting
- There are plenty of self-inflicted problems to focus on, caused by the proposal professionals themselves. There is no shortage of square wheels.
However, in my work to optimise bidding processes and organisations, the proposal professionals themselves pale in comparison to management. Most often, the square wheels are being delivered from the top.
As a client of mine once said: “In proposals, we are supposed to make money, not spend it.” In many organisations, the proposal department is considered a group of people with laptops and a Wi-Fi connection – and that’s it. In recent years, a subscription for ChatGPT or Copilot might be available if they are lucky.
Within proposals, there has been a tooling shortage for many years.
If a construction company needs a new piling rig for a project, it will buy or rent one. Without one, the project will come to a standstill. So they handle it.
But if the proposal department in the same construction company requires a tool to optimise their work or enhance their winning chances, the likely answer is no. In spite of the fact that the price tag amounts to just a tiny fraction of what the company spends on machinery (often spent without a second thought).
The problem runs deeper because the work they do could be done ‘by hand’. You can make references and CVs from scratch for every proposal. You can run your bid/no-bid process from a spreadsheet. You can collect SME contributions by sending e-mails and walking around the office with a stern look on your face. It is terribly inefficient – but possible.
When proposal teams approach senior management with requests to update their toolkit, they are often met with the notion that things have been working so far, so why a need to change? This is just one challenge for our profession and encapsulates the paradox that many bid and proposal professionals are facing.
On one side, they are expected to match the competition, be innovative, creative and in the end, win. On the other side, they are often considered mere office clerks who can pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
The bid and proposal departments that I see succeed are the ones with a fierce leader able to carve out a position of acknowledgement within the organisation and resources to go with it.
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